Jason Goldberg Is Not Hiding His Devs

The fast-growing design-centric superdiscount site Fab.com, which executed a double pivot, is up to 90 employees and growing revenue at 33 percent per month, CEO Jason Goldberg told Betabeat. With head hunters poking around all the bigger startups in the city, that’s a lot of employees to hide. But Mr. Goldberg isn’t losing sleep over having his employees poached. “We’re a hot company,” he told Betabeat. “We’re growing really fast. We’ve had a number of companies who are trying to recruit some of our team members. When someone on my team gets 10 calls from a recruiter a week, we think they should feel flattered.”

If a recruiter wants to get in touch with one of his employees, they’re welcome to, he said. Last week Mr. Goldberg wrote a blog post titled, “Recruit away our team. I dare you. Heck, I encourage you” in which he offered to hand over employee phone numbers to recruiters. Basically, bring it on.

Why, why, why would you ever say that at a time when talent is so hard to find? Betabeat asked.

“Our employees have the right to work whever they want. They gotta want to be there,” he said. “It’s a nice way to send a message that people are free to come and go as they please, but the onus is on the employer to build an amazing work environment.”

He’s confident that the employees who belong at Fab.com will stay, he said. “I have a belief that the best kind of way to ensure that we attract and retain talent is to build the best work environment in the world,” he said. “The challenge is on myself and my team to do that.”

When employees tell him they’ve been contacted by a recruiter, Mr. Goldberg congratulates them. “I say ‘great, that’s awesome, it should make you feel good,'” he said. Reverse psychology, much?

But outing recruiters may have another benefit. “Guess what?” he said. “I’m going to call those companies and try and recruit their people.”

Betabeat is now the newly launched Innovation section of the Observer. All your favorite features and columns—as well as exciting new areas of tech coverage—can now be found at Observer.com/Innovation.

Don't miss the latest and best writing on technology and the future of business innovation. Add the Innovation section to your RSS feed and follow the Observer on Twitter and Facebook.